Rebecca Shoptaw

The New Yorker - "'Middlemarch' Gets Winningly Adapted as a Web Series"

July 14, 2017

"It’s a lovely moment, conveying a spirit of youth and uncertainty—the same spirit that George Eliot sought to bring to the page almost a hundred and fifty years ago. In it, Shoptaw captures what remains constant about the restless inquiries of young people who want their lives to be meaningful, no matter what has changed about the world they may find themselves in the middle of."

le monde - "Le roman <<Middlemarch>> de George Eliot adapté en websérie"

July 19, 2017 - In French

Curieusement, ce roman n’a pas connu le même succès que ceux de Jane Austen en version filmée. Jusqu’à ce que Rebecca Shoptaw, une étudiante de l’université de Yale (Connecticut) décide d’adapter Middlemarch en minisérie, dont la première moitié (36 épisodes) est disponible sur YouTube. Et le résultat est assez surprenant."

i-D Magazine - “'middlemarch' is now a queer coming-of-age web series"

November 22, 2017 - Interview

 "I think something that really struck me when I read Middlemarch for the first time was the way that the novel’s narrator weaves together all the different storylines to make broader points about human nature. One of those points that was especially powerful for me personally was the novel’s appreciation of the ordinary, the beautiful way with which it insists on telling unimportant stories. I feel like this especially resonates in college, where the pressure to change the world, or to be important, or just to be in some way extraordinary is so strong."

The Dickens Society - "Adapting Middlemarch in the Information Age"

July 4, 2017 - Interview

"Instead of taking an event from the novel and simply moving it to the modern day, I turned my attention to the conversations and emotions that surrounded each major plot point, and tried to come up with a modern equivalent that could leave those emotions all but unchanged.

I think the reason this adaptation strategy worked well for me and for Middlemarch was that George Eliot’s novel, Victorian as it is, is not really about debt or inheritance or the codicil plot. At its heart, Middlemarch is about its characters, and even in the modern day, those characters shine through."

fourteen east - "A trip to middlemarch"

August 6, 2017 - Interview

"Middlemarch: The Series is smart. It takes a lengthy, classic text and repackages it for a new world. Fans of the original text can understand the nuanced references, but the show can be enjoyed by anyone. The cast is equally talented as they are charming – and the audience is pulled in from the very beginning. There is heartbreak and conflict, but there is also an underlying theme of hope. Maybe it’s a liberal arts type of idealism, but it’s evident this lovable group of kids really want to change the world – and the world better watch out."

Marshall and the Movies - “Watch More Short Films!”

January 12, 2024 - Interview

“‘A short film can really be a sort of cinematic playground, where filmmakers can try out editing techniques, story structures and cinematography styles and, with far fewer risks than in a feature film, basically just explore what a film can be.’ - RS”

Canadian Broadcasting Company - “Love and Consequences: George Eliot's Middlemarch”

April 7, 2022 - Radio Interview

“[Fred Vincy] was really fun because he had a very heightened voice that was fun to write, but we were always playing with the persona vs. his actual feelings coming through and sort of the façade falling apart in certain moments.”

Queer news - “lucy from the chronicles of narnia stars in an 8-minute lgbtq+ love story”

July 9, 2019

“In the eight minutes and forty-four seconds of the lesbian short film Girl, Sweetvoiced, starring Georgie Henley (Narnia) and Antoinette Belle, the waves of nostalgia were strong enough to knock me to my knees. The film is an accumulation of layers: worry, doubt, sensuality, attraction, longing and, as Sappho so astutely expresses, want. To intensify this theme, director Rebecca Shoptaw also uses technical layers, swirling a range of strong currents for the viewer to focus on, which when brought together, become an ocean of vivid, intoxicating sensation.”

the nerdy girl express - “clexacon interview - rebecca shoptaw”

March 30th, 2019 - Interview

“The process of creating this series was really exciting, partly because it combined some of my process for short films with some of my process for Middlemarch. Like a number of my films, Love Language is entirely without dialogue, and much of the storytelling comes in the form of quiet glances and brief touches, often heightened by experimental cinematography and/or editing.

At the same time, this project allowed me to use these techniques to return to and develop the same characters over time, just as I had for Middlemarch. I really loved combining those two parts of my work (the cinematic style and the longer-form storytelling), and hope to continue to do so in future projects!”

chain film festival - "Untitled tenderness project"

August 2, 2018 - Interview

"I would love to keep contributing - in my small way - more ordinary stories. Soft, awkward, sometimes painfully realistic stories about people just trying to find their way, or fall in love, or make something worth making. As much as I would love to see more queer fantasy epics and adventure stories, I'd like to hope that there will still be room for this quieter kind of storytelling, because it makes a happy future a bit more possible to imagine."

women and hollywood - “Middlemarch Web Series Modernizes the Classic Novel"

July 27, 2017

"Of all the classic novels you could imagine being turned into a web series for the 21st century, George Eliot’s “Middlemarch” might not be the first to spring to mind. Then again, where better to reinvent Eliot’s sprawling portrait of provincial life in early 19th century England — originally published in serial form across eight volumes — than on what has become the new home of installment entertainment, YouTube?"

playground - "Una joven cineasta ha convertido 'Middlemarch' en una webserie con perspectiva LGBTQI"

July 19, 2017 - In Spanish

"Así, si la novela de Eliot se caracterizaba por proponer un enjuiciamiento moral crítico del tipo de relaciones que se daban en torno a las mujeres -especialmente a las estructuras sociales que aseguraban su sumisión-, la serie de Shoptaw abre todavía más el foco y traslada la complejidad psicológica de la novela a los vínculos, amistades y amoríos que se dan en un grupo de jóvenes cuya identidad de género y orientación sexual está lejos de ser estanca. Además, al trasladar los personajes deMiddlemarch a la pequeña pantalla, la directora aprovecha para subvertir -en un juego intertextual- los roles que dichos personajes van a desempeñar."

open culture - "george eliot's middlemarch gets reborn as a 21st century web series"

July 17, 2017

"Written and directed by Yale undergraduate film student Rebecca Shoptaw, the series stars several of Shoptaw’s peers “as students at Lowick College, in the fictional town of Middlemarch, Connecticut,” and it transcribes the novel’s form into that most 21st century of mediums, the vlog."

fandomania - "Middlemarch: classic romantic tale with a new twist"

June 22, 2017 - Interview

"When I set out to adapt Middlemarch, I wanted to give viewers the same feeling I got when I read the novel. To me, Middlemarch is something of a celebration of imperfect people living ordinary lives. Each time I finish reading those last beautiful lines of the novel, I am overwhelmed with the feeling that a quiet, messy, everyday kind of happiness is something worth striving for, and I hope that when the series finally finishes airing, some of the people watching will be left feeling the same way."

decider - "‘Middlemarch: The Series’ Masterfully Adapts George Eliot For A Millennial Audience"

June 1, 2017

"Middlemarch sets itself apart from other entries of the genre. The diverse ensemble cast drives the uniquely compelling series with their believable, honest performances, and their natural chemistry makes each short episode a delight. There is truly nothing like Middlemarch out there right now, and the creative imagining of Eliot’s iconic work is somehow still remarkably entertaining in 2017."

study breaks - "Meet the Students Using Web Series To Make Media More Diverse"

June 1, 2017

“After musing about what she could use as material for her own web series, she found ‘Middlemarch,’ a novel by George Eliot. The novel focuses on several distinct but intersecting stories about a slew of characters. Shoptaw says one of the reasons she’s so interested in the novel is its larger arguments about human nature itself that still hold true in today’s society, such as the rigidity of social expectations.”

the daily fandom - "LGBTQ+ Web Series ‘Middlemarch: The Series’ Gender-Bends George Eliot’s Middlemarch"

May 30, 2017

"Middlemarch: The Series is a brand new comedy/drama LGBTQ+ web series adaptation of George Eliot’s Middlemarch. Middlemarch: The Series is a romantic web series following a group of students at Lowick College in the fictional town of Middlemarch, Connecticut. Based on George Eliot’s Victorian novel, the web series is a modern, gender-bent take on the classic in a vlog-style."

the lgbt world - "'Middlemarch: the series' - a new lGBTQ+ web series to check out"

May 30, 2017

"A gender-bent adaptation of George Eliot’s Victorian novel “Middlemarch,” the series follows a group of college students in the fictional town of Middlemarch, Connecticut, who set out to change the world and then have to figure out how to live in it.

The series was produced over the course of the 2016-2017 academic year, with a one-person crew and a one-thousand-dollar budget. The series was created, written, directed, shot, and edited by Rebecca Shoptaw (Yale ’18), the director behind a number of award-winning short films on YouTube focused on LGBTQ+ representation, and the series stars Mia Fowler (Yale ’20) as Dot Brooke."

nettvnow - "award-Winning director announces middlemarch web series"

May 11, 2017

"Shoptaw is an award-winning director knowing for her short films focused on LGBTQ+ representation, which prompted her to create Middlemarch. The series currently has 21 episodes with new episodes airing every Monday and Wednesday at 5:30 PM EST. Follow along using their official hashtag #MMTS and get caught up with the series today!"

rob.lgbt - "Watch Sonnet 23 - a modern reimagining of william shakespeare's original sonnet"

March 29, 2017

"The short gay film Sonnet 23 shows a modern gay interpretation William Shakespeare’s original sonnet created by Rebecca Shoptaw. In a beautifully shot way, Rebecca Shoptaw tells a story of longing and love between two students."

Yale daily news - "Middlemarch: the Beauty of the ordinary"

March 10th, 2017

"What do you get when you cross a 19th-century English novel with a 21st-century college campus? This is the question Rebecca Shoptaw ’18 explores in her web series, “Middlemarch,” based on the 1872 George Eliot novel. The series, filmed as a collection of straight-to-camera vlogs, follows the intersecting lives of a group of college students at the fictional Lowick University in Middlemarch, Connecticut..." 

DEBORARTE - "Cortos: Infinite rose"

May 15th, 2016 - in Spanish

"Ante toda la muerte que reina en el mundo lésbico últimamente, elegí para esta ocasión un corto muy tierno, de esos que te dejan sonriendo cuando termina."